The Iraq military campaign had made the world more unstable “than any other conflict in history”, he said.

Mr Blair responded by saying “this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say”.

Earlier this week, Archbishop Tutu, a veteran peace campaigner who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in recognition of his campaign against apartheid, pulled out of a leadership summit in Johannesburg because he refused to share a platform with Mr Blair.

The former Archbishop of Cape Town said the US- and UK-led action launched against Saddam’s regime in 2003 had brought about conditions for the civil war in Syria and a possible Middle East conflict involving Iran.

“The then leaders of the United States [Mr Bush] and Great Britain [Mr Blair] fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us,” he said.

The Iraq military campaign had made the world more unstable than any other conflict in history, he said.

Another example of a libtard evading reality by dropping context . Bush liberated millions in Iraq from oppression and the violation of their natural rights by a brutal dictator. Bush also prevented the natural rights of Americans from being violated by an enemy, which is one of the major purposes of a rational and just government.Bush has the moral high ground.

Another example of a libtard evading reality by dropping context . Bush liberated millions in Iraq from oppression and the violation of their natural rights by a brutal dictator. Bush also prevented the natural rights of Americans from being violated by an enemy, which is one of the major purposes of a rational and just government.Bush has the moral high ground.

Moral equivalence. We’ve seen it a million times since the attacks of 9-11. It is the "peace" movement’s dogma, holding that the collateral, unintended killing of Afghan civilians during the US military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda is the moral equivalent of the 9-11 mass murders in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. By extension, America’s military response is deemed unwarranted "vengeance" that merely perpetuates "the cycle of violence."

A leading proponent of this view is Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work against South African apartheid. "Might is not right," says Tutu. "If it is utterly reprehensible that innocent civilians were targeted in New York and Washington, how could we possibly say it doesn’t apply elsewhere in the world?" Last week he lamented how "sad" it was "to see a powerful country [the US] use its power frequently unilaterally" to bully the rest of the world.

Tutu characterizes America’s war on terrorism as an exercise in "vengeance" rather than justice. Subtly underlying this assertion is the unspoken axiom that the enemy that struck on 9-11 was not animated by premeditated evil, but was itself responding to America’s original injustice. While acknowledging that al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization, Tutu maintains that many of its followers are "not lunatic fringe [but rather] are quite intelligent," and that Americans need to ask themselves why such people "should be willing to pilot a plane and go to their deaths" to strike a blow against the US.

To that question, Tutu himself provides a ready answer. The 9-11 attacks, he says, were caused by the "poverty, hunger, and disease" plaguing the Third World, which he blamed, by implication, on the United States. He has even gone so far as to say that if a visitor from outer space were to survey the international scene on earth, such a creature would recoil in horror at the manner in which the wealthy, presumably exploitative US spends so much money on its war-making capabilities and so little on humanitarian causes. "A minute fraction of these defense budgets would ensure that God’s children everywhere would have clean water, enough to eat, a decent home, a proper education, and accessible and affordable health care," says Tutu. In short, if only America would give up its selfishness, the have-nots of the world could live better.

One wonders why Tutu chooses to assign responsibility for the poverty of other nations to no one but the United States. One further wonders why he fails to note that America has historically given far more humanitarian aid to foreign populations than has any other nation on earth. Indeed Tutu makes no mention of the vast sums our country has recently sent to the needy in such far-flung places as Mozambique, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Nicaragua, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Kosovo – to say nothing of the $848 million in aid to Afghanistan last year. And finally, one wonders whether the vaunted Nobel Prize winner or his mythical "space visitor" have ever contemplated what additional disasters might have befallen the targets of aggression in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Kuwait – if not for the intervention of America’s "war-making capabilities."

While Tutu’s estimation of American culpability for international crises is obviously quite high, the reader may find it refreshing to learn that he considers all evildoers to be ultimately redeemable. Addressing worshippers at Boston’s Episcopal Church of St. Paul last February, for instance, Tutu asserted that it was wrong to categorically depict America’s enemies as "evil." "We’re giving up on a fellow human being when we demonize a fellow human being," he said. Exhorting his listeners to remember that Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda members are also children of God, he stated that "the Christian God we worship gives up on no one." But it is nothing new to hear Tutu complain that America is too quick to condemn people. Indeed during a 1999 speech, he told an audience of more than 1,300 that "some of the greatest saints in the Christian firmament were notorious sinners," and wondered aloud whether such people as Mary Magdalene and St. Francis "would have survived indictment" in the United States.

Eager though he may be to pass judgment on American policies, this same Desmond Tutu has openly proclaimed not only compassionate understanding – but unabashed admiration – for Winnie Mandela, South Africa’s so-called "Mother of the Nation." Prominent in the Soviet-sponsored African National Congress (ANC), which was closely aligned with the South African Communist Party, Ms. Mandela used her notorious bodyguards in a protracted reign of terror, torture, and murder. The ANC committed innumerable atrocities in the name of liberation, prompting a 1988 Pentagon Report to list it as one of the world's "more notorious terrorist groups."

43
posted on 09/02/2012 6:19:56 PM PDT
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

>> Tutu is one moron that never impressed me much. I dont understand why the commie libs have a love affair with him. <<

Me either. His title is "The former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa" I looked it up once, and Anglicans make up a whooping 6% of the population of South Africa. When will the media rush out to determine how the former Lutheran Synod President of St. Louis, Missouri feels about the Iraq War and gay marriage? He's got as much religious authority as this guy.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.